The B2B sales sector is in a state of flux in this age of new technology and disruption, and permanent resources are something of an endangered species. Research suggests 25 per cent of the current total of B2B salespeople will be redundant by 2020, and disruption will potentially reduce the requirement in this sector by 40 per cent 15 years from now.
Add to this the fact that small businesses already struggle to cope with the time and money involved in getting a B2B sales recruit up to speed – on average it costs almost $150,000 in remuneration and training costs and 16 months before a new sales asset starts to pay their way in a business – and it is clear a more agile, cost-effective way of connection sales professionals with businesses as and when they are needed is required.
Two Melbourne brothers have come up with a concept that may well be the solution to this problem. Graham and Doug Hawkins have this month launched SalesTribe, a curated stable of B2B sales professionals available on an as-needed basis to the rapidly growing number of start-ups in Australia, many of whom will need digitally savvy, socially connected sales specialists at some stage to grow their businesses.
Andrew Humphries, co-founder of London accelerator The Bakery and representative of the UK Government’s Department for International Trade (DIT), says, “start-ups have wonderful ideas and great products and services, but often lack the commercial acumen to the corporate world.”
The SalesTribe website, www.salestribe.com, seeks to resolve this issue, and acknowledges the trend towards the “on-demand economy” by putting start-ups looking for B2B sales specialists people and salespeople looking for opportunities in touch with each other.
Humphries is sufficiently impressed with SalesTribe that he announced at its recent official launch that Graham and Dougs’ own start-up is one of this year’s 100 new businesses to have been selected to join the Global Entrepreneur Programme, a DIT initiative that helps entrepreneurs and early-stage technology businesses and start-ups looking to relocate their business to the U.K.
